


Masks/Smiles

by InsertImaginativeNameHere



Series: Detective AU [3]
Category: Baccano!
Genre: 1705 AU, Aftermath of Violence, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Detective AU, Does anything make sense?, Elmer gets rekt a lot apparently, Mentions of Blood, Multi, Niki deserves better, Protect Niki 2k5ever, Rambling and Nonsense, Stop These Hands, but thats the au nobody can stop me, well ish bc Victor is here for some reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 02:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9470864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertImaginativeNameHere/pseuds/InsertImaginativeNameHere
Summary: After being stabbed by Monica, Elmer runs through the consequences of this and how it will affect their detective agency, the ramifications of this on the case, and most importantly - whether being the Mask Maker makes Monica smile.





	

**Author's Note:**

> eyyyyyy the nonsense returns this is semi-coherent fun and I hope you enjoy. Introducing Essa to detective AU bc hes kind of important at this point. And I'm rly fond of Essa.

So he’d been stabbed. There was a dull ache in his shoulder that became sharp if he put any pressure on it. The pain was familiar, but also odd. He’d not experienced anything like that in a long while. He wished he’d been able to see the face under the mask, see if they were smiling.

_ See if Monica was smiling _ .

Moni-moni was the Mask Maker? This information changed everything. Moni-moni was the cat. The monopoly cat stalking the boots. If it made her smile, then why not? He needed to ask her the specifics of that. Was she happy as the Mask Maker? Was that why she did it? If so, what about the people she killed? Were they happy with the arrangement?

How would Huey react if and when he found out?

Monica didn’t want him to tell. The stabbing was a warning to back off. Which was funny really, because if she hadn’t done that, it would have taken way longer to figure out it was her all along. She totally gave herself away there. Maybe she subconsciously wanted them to find out. Maybe it was like all those movies where the killer had multiple personalities that Huey critiqued as being an appalling depiction of mental illness and not how anything worked literally ever ever ever. Or something like that. He’d got really boring super quick so Elmer had started pelting him with popcorn so they could watch Fight Club when it was on TV one time. It was a really violent movie so Monica didn’t like it much, but sometimes the people smiled and sometimes it was genuine. 

...Monica didn’t like violent movies but she was the Mask Maker. 

There were more masks than the obvious one she wore.

Everyone wore masks.

 

-

 

Everyone wore masks, and that was just a simple fact of life. People wore false smiles to disguise all sorts of things. Animosity, bad smells, dislike of fashion sense, an eagerness to be liked and seem friendly, wanting to move up in the world, get something out of someone...there were countless reasons to fake a smile. But a genuine smile was something else, something  _ different _ . Elmer knew it when he saw it, but he also knew he couldn’t replicate it, not for lack of trying. The thing about a genuine smile was that it wasn’t practised or forced. It was just...there. It happened. Or it didn’t. You couldn’t flick a switch that made it happen. It happened by itself. If it wasn’t organic, if it didn’t just  _ happen _ , it wasn’t a real smile. And it was possible to see the switch flicking, the falseness of the flimsy mask showing through in the eyes. Studying genuine and fake smiles made it possible to hopefully one day experience the former category of smile.

At least, that was how Elmer explained it to Huey. Maybe - okay, fine,  _ definitely _ not in those words. But that sort of thing, anyway. Huey had just stared.

“Not really the kind of thing you blurt out at McDonalds.”

“Oh? Really? It was when I worked here. Everyone talked about all kinds of existential and moral dilemmas. Until I got fired.”

“No surprises there,” Huey muttered. 

“It was, actually. It was a huge surprise. I was employee of the month twice in a row! It was when we got robbed at gunpoint that I got fired for telling the manager she may as well smile anyway. I’ve never really understood why she did that.”

“If you don’t get it now, you never will.” Huey rolled his eyes, looking like the adorable done-with-everything bunny that he was. “Anyway, I didn’t know you’d worked in McDonalds. When did that happen?”

“Oh, years ago,” Elmer replied dismissively. “Before I got a job at the costumed car wash. Which was before the kid’s funhouse, but that burnt down in totally unsuspicious circumstances and so I had to become a detective to find the arsonist and make all the children happy again. And I did.”

“Let me guess - the manager, for insurance purposes?” Huey answered, sounding bored.

“Nope!” Elmer grinned. “A really, really drunk bunch of teenagers who broke in, couldn’t find any money, so burnt the place to the ground. One of them was the stepbrother of a janitor. But nice try, for completely out-of-context guesses. You were so, so close. I can see why all the blogs rate you as best detective. Anyone with eyes can.”

“...are you saying I get higher ratings because I’m, what?  _ Pretty _ ?”

“Well yeah,” Elmer answered bluntly. “Isn’t that obvious?”

Huey groaned, head sinking into his hands. “Leave now.”

Elmer hit him in the face with a bit of popcorn chicken. 

And then Monica arrived with their drinks. And Huey perked up and stopped sulking and there was this faint little smile toying at the edges of his lips. And it was a beautiful thing to see. Every day should have been like that one.

Smiles all around, and popcorn chicken.

That was how it should have been.

 

-

 

That was how it should have been. Smiles. Genuine ones. Not hiding behind these masks for murder. His shoulder ached. It’d be fine. Monica had been considerate enough to only stab him a little bit, in a place that wouldn’t bleed a lot. That was really thoughtful of her. He wondered, again, if she’d been smiling when she’d done it. He pressed the wonder and pulled his bloodied fingers away. It really wasn’t that deep. He could patch it up easy. It wouldn’t be the first time. 

Patch it up with things from the bathroom cupboard quickly, then go find out what was up with Monica.

And if she wanted him to hide it from Huey to preserve this happy status quo they’d created, so be it. 

It was Monica’s choice to tell Huey about it, if she wanted to. 

But he had to find out what was going on under the mask. How many masks was Monica wearing? How many smiles of hers were faked?

He patched up his shoulder and set off to find out. 

 

-

 

After he’d been captured, Huey and Monica made sure he got to hospital. In the taxi on the way there, he looked over at Monica and grinned.

“We don’t have to go to the hospital if you don’t want, Moni-moni. It’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad?” She stared at him in horror. “Elmer, you’re bleeding everywhere!”

“Okay, that makes it look worse than it is. And I’m not bleeding  _ everywhere _ . I’m not bleeding from an artery onto the ceiling. It’s just a  _ bit _ of blood. Seriously, Moni, I’ve had way worse. We can deal with this back at the office. Hospitals are a paaaaaaaain. You go in once and then they don’t let you out for aaaaaaaages.”

“It’ll be fine, Elmer,” Monica said, her tone harsher than she ever used around Huey, lacking the usual tremor to it. “You’ll be in and out within a week. They’ll just need to do blood tests and make sure you haven’t got an infection. We can’t deal with that kind of thing without proper medical facilities.”

“Huh. Guess things have changed since I was a kid,” Elmer mused. 

“What do you mean?” Monica asked, slight horror creeping into her voice.

“Well, y’know.” Elmer shrugged. “I never saw a doctor for years. I always got treated at home, and way worse happened than this. And then when I did get out, they sent me to hospital for such a looooooong time. It was boring.”

“How long do you mean by a long time?”

“Oh, like months and months and months. Then I got sent to a foster home. But they were reeaaaaaaaaally Catholic. So I got in trouble a lot there. Because I kept asking questions they didn’t feel like answering. And then I ran away.  Oh man, I did so much cool stuff. I travelled around so many places, chilled with some cool people, tried and failed to become a bank robber, tried and failed to become a pirate, tried and failed to become a-” Monica coughed not very subtly, and Elmer moved on. “Then I worked in McDonald’s for a bit. And then a children’s play centre.” She spluttered in horror.

“How did they let you work there? I mean...how? Surely they do like, background checks? I mean no offence Elmer, but there’s no way you’d check out.”

“None taken!” He beamed brightly, through the pain and the bruises, and the broken ribs constricting his chest. At a guess, he’d say two were broken. But he wouldn’t hold himself to that. It might have been three! You never could tell without properly checking! “I blackmailed the owner into hiring me. He was using the place as a drug front.”

“Really?”

“No, I just used a fake ID, but that’s so much more  _ boring _ , isn’t it, Moni-moni? Isn’t it though?”

“And then?”

“Oh, the place burnt down so I became a detective. I like being a detective.” Everything was starting to feel woozy. “People smile when you find the culprit, and you get to run around looking cool, and we have a fancy door for the office...an’ there’s you. An’ Huey. An’...” he heard Monica yelling at him to stay awake.

He promptly passed out instead.

When he woke up, he was in hospital.

Because people overreacted about severe injuries, didn’t they? He would have been fine otherwise, he was sure of that. 

But whatever. Lying in a bed being fussed over? That was pretty fun too.

_ Especially if Huey came to play nurse. _

 

-

 

He’d met Niki being pushed around by some obvious criminal-y guy. She looked pretty sad. And the guy about to hit her looked downright furious, which was pretty confusing because what was the point in hitting someone if it made you angry? Why wouldn’t you just smile instead?

He raised this point and the guy seemed really, really annoyed by this. 

Okay...excuse him for trying to help, trying to make this guy have a nicer experience. Then again, the girl didn’t seem like she  _ wanted _ to be punched or would enjoy it, so wasn’t it Elmer’s unwritten manifest duty to rescue her from this fate? Or something like that.

He grabbed her hand and ran.

“Who are you?” Niki asked, breathing heavily. 

“I’m a detective of course! I detect trouble and things. You’re in trouble.”

“I  _ am _ trouble,” Niki had corrected.

“That’s what people always say about me too! If I help you, I’m sure the trouble will just cancel itself out. And I can help, I’ve got partners. They’re really incredible people, so they’ll know just what to do-”

He took her back to the office.

And unknowingly set the ball rolling. For  _ this _ situation right now, that he was currently in, with a bloody shoulder and Monica revealing herself as the Mask Maker.

But he couldn’t have left Niki like that.

He had to give her reasons to smile. 

  
Even if it meant going against Monica.

 

-

 

He knew where Monica lived, of course he did. He’d been round there many times. The pastries were particularly good. Sometimes he and Huey would go there and sneak reject ‘accidentally’ misshapen biscuits, courtesy of Monica. She’d bring breakfast by to the office most mornings. Otherwise Huey might forget, prioritise the cases first and eating second. Elmer had told him this was such a cliche detective trope and he should stop watching so many procedurals.

Huey had pointed out the only reason he watched so many of those procedurals was because Elmer made him.

Which was also true.

Still. 

He shimmied up the drainpipe, reaching Monica’s window and pulling himself up onto the windowsill where he grinned. Here he was. And people questioned his skills as a detective. There was speculation in the papers that he was leeching off Huey and Monica’s work to claim credit in their cases. Articles written under various names. Still, it was no leap of logic to pin the rumour on  _ him _ . Nobody else would bother launching such a bizarrely dedicated smear campaign. You really had to admire the dedication involved! It was impressive! If he enjoyed it, then he could go right ahead.

_ 10/10 Elmer. Best detective. 2k5ever. _

Lifting a hand and prepping his best smile, he knocked on the window.

“Knock knock! It’s the Mask Maker!”

Monica rushed over to the window and opened the curtains. She was wearing fluffy pyjamas with a kitten on the front. “Elmer, what the  _ hell _ ? What are you doing he- what happened to your arm? Are you okay?”

Elmer’s eyes widened.  _ She didn’t know he knew _ . But it had been so obvious? 

“I am, thanks. Even though you were the one who stabbed me. Hey, Moni-moni, how long have you been the Mask Maker for?”

Monica took a step back from the window abruptly. “How did you know it was-”

“Oh, you know.  It was obviously you. When you held me down, it felt a lot like that pillow fight we had the other day.”

“You noticed  _ that _ while being stabbed?” Monica sounded incredulous.

“Sure. I’m used to it.” There was a look of barely veiled horror on Monica’s face that Elmer waved off, laughing. “It was only a tiny stab anyway. Thanks Monica.”

“You can’t tell Huey,” she insisted. 

Elmer smiled. “Cross my heart. And hey, give us a smile!”

She did. It was faint, and not 100% genuine but it was a start.

Smiles had to start somewhere, right? With practise. With tentative not-quite-smiles. That was where smiles began. And they grew, or were supposed to. Organically. Organic homegrown smiles, with no artificial colours or flavourings.

 

-

 

“Speran~! How’re you this morning?” It was the day after Elmer got stabbed and he was having breakfast here instead as the office, this once. Monica would probably want the space with Huey today, and he wanted to give her some time for last night to be a distant memory so her smiles around him could be more natural. Besides, it wasn’t like Esperanza’s chef wasn’t  _ literally from another world, _ she was that talented. And Niki was there. Maybe Niki would spill more info. Maybe the breakfast would be so so good it would make Niki smile. If wishes were fishes...and fishes were wishes like the mackerel on the table...if the fish was a wish his wish would be for Niki to smile genuinely. But the fish was not a wish and it was instead, a fish. 

Unfortunately too, in addition to the fish/wish conundrum, Niki took breakfast in her room. A request Esperanza insisted on honouring, rather than taking the entire breakfast table into her room and throwing a huge party like Elmer suggested.

“It’s funny, but the servants said there was blood on your bedding. Did you get yourself into another dangerous case?” His host narrowed his owl-like eyes. “Is Miss Niki in danger? If you are endangering this girl-”

“Trying to help her, Speran! You know I wouldn’t intentionally  endanger anyone! Unless it was like an adrenaline thing, parachute jumping. I’ve never been parachute jumping. Hey Speran, can we go parachute jumping? You could afford that, riiiiiight?”

Esperanza didn’t react. “If you were a woman asking that, then I might be inclined to say yes. As it’s you Elmer, the answer remains a solid no. And will continue to do so.”

“Aw, but it’d be fun! The adrenaline would make you smile~”

“Perhaps, but I would smile infinitely more if there were a woman with me, enjoying it by my side, rather than you,” he replied, slicing up his egg carefully. “Regardless, my question stands. You’ve been working as a detective since you came to this city. In that time you have been at the centre of several investigations and have been abducted and attacked. Do tell me what it is this time. You know I take a passing interest in crime. I would rather not be investigated for one however, if you get yourself stabbed in a ditch somewhere.” Esperanza waved a careless hand. He stabbed a bit of egg with his fork and ate it. “Now. Is this pertaining to Niki’s case? Is she in danger? I assume so, since you brought her here.”

Elmer shrugged. While he didn’t think Monica would hurt her, Mask Maker or no, there were other factors involved. The people after Niki. The complexities of the situation. 

“Would you believe me if I said I had a nosebleed?” he tried testing the water.

“No,” Esperanza replied. “I can protect Niki. You, however, ought to look out for yourself better.” It was as sincere an expression of friendship as any, and was accompanied with a brief flicker of a not-smile. “I am your host. I don’t have any authority over you, nor do I really need your rent money, and you enjoy making yourself an inconvenience with matters like bleeding all over the sheets, but...be  _ careful _ . If this case presents any difficulties, any abnormal danger or legal problems  _ ask _ me first.”

“Nah, I think we’re good. Although…” Elmer trailed off. “I just thought of something.”

“What?” 

Elmer told him.

Esperanza was less than pleased, but conceded to the request anyway. 

He was  _ such  _ a pushover sometimes. 

Easy-peasy.

 

-

 

His first meeting with Esperanza had been case-related. Before he became a private detective, not long after Elmer left his foster home. It was around the time of the McDonald’s incident, and Esperanza was the defence attorney for the incident, a newly qualified lawyer on his first big case. He nevertheless carried a lot of prestige thanks to who his family were. It was perhaps a little suspicious the McDonald’s attackers could afford his fees, though at the time it hadn’t seemed so odd given how new he’d been back then. 

“So...Mr...Elmertross C Alba?” the lawyer squinted at the ID Elmer had produced with its genius false name nobody could ever see through. “You were working at the time of the robbery, yes?”

“Yep! I offered them complementary nuggets!” Elmer replied blithely. 

“You offered robbers free food?”

“Well yeah. They were robbing us anyway, so they were probably hungry because they had no money for food. So I thought they might like some mcnuggets anyway.”

“And…” Esperanza glanced down at his notes. “You lost your job just after for insensitive, smile-related comments? How could you be so callous to such a wonderful woman? All women being wonderful, how could you be so rude?”

“I just thought she should smile,” Elmer replied. “Being robbed isn’t a good thing, but we’d survived fine so she should have been glad. She could have been dead. We had every reason to smile then.”

Esperanza sighed. “So. My clients are accused of committing this crime-”

“They’re guilty though, aren’t they?” Elmer cocked his head, confused. 

“Yes. They made your poor manager cry. I cannot let that stand. However, while my own law firm for female clients gets off the ground, I have reluctantly had to take this case.”

“You could afford not to,” Elmer pointed out. “Aren’t you really rich or something?”

Esperanza shrugged lazily. “Am I rich? Yes, indeed. Do I need more legal experience? Unfortunately, yes, which brings me to defending these lowlifes, something I am contractually obliged to do until I am able to strike out alone. It’s funny, but they asked for me specifically. Almost as though they were sabotaging themselves. Or someone was sabotaging them. Oh well. I suppose it’s a mystery.” He looked at Elmer. “It will all come out in a proper Court of Law in due course.”

That wasn’t a hint to investigate, the opposite rather, but Elmer did anyway even though he was only in his late teens at the time. 

As it happened, the robbers were part of an organised group of delinquents known as the Rotten Eggs and their fees had been paid by someone named Aile, their apparent leader who disapproved of the robbery but didn’t want them in prison. They’d requested Esperanza because of his family name, an ingrained old money elitism they’d inherited from their parents.

They lost the case but got off lightly, with their crimes written away as ‘boys being boys’, just a bit of mischief,  _ dabbling _ in armed robbery as a playful jest.

_ Well _ , Elmer thought,  _ if that’s what makes them happy… _

He stayed in touch with Esperanza after he stopped practising law and moved to Lotto Valentino, following him not long after with his new goal of becoming an incredible private detective. Unfortunately he didn’t really know anything about the legalities of this, or what constituted certain crimes. So he called his friend, asking for advice.

And so he ended up moving in with him. 

 

-

 

“Hey Huey, did you hear the one about the dyslexic agnostic insomniac? He stayed up all night wondering if there was a dog.”

Huey groaned. “Elmer, we’ve been trapped in this elevator ever since our number three suspect turned the power out and bumped herself up to number one. Please don’t make this any more unbearable than it already is.”

“I can think of plenty of things we can do in an elevator to pass the time. They might even make you smile.”

“Elmer, no. Monica’s going to get us out of here, we’ll be fine.” There was a loud shuddering sound and it felt like the lift swung. Huey’s face fell. “How many bombs do you think she has left?”

“Oh, anywhere between none and ten,” Elmer replied brightly. “I wouldn’t worry.”

“Elmer, she blew up a building with four of those bombs. If she’s got ten, we need to get out of here. Give me a leg up, we need to get to the escape hatch.”

“Okay!” He attempted to lift Huey up, dropping him twice (the second time a tiny bit on purpose) and finally giving him a decent foothold with which to get up, climbing onto Elmer’s shoulders. He reached up, fingers brushing the escape hatch, and then they overbalanced into a heap on the floor, a tangle of limbs with no distance between them, and no easy way to untangle themselves. Elmer grinned. This couldn’t have happened better if he’d planned it himself and intentionally overbalanced on purpose. Which of course he hadn’t.  _ Of course not _ . Why would he do a thing like that when their lives were in danger? Unless, of course, he knew he could probably coax a smile out of Huey for it.

Their faces were close now, and Elmer could see the frustration of Huey’s face and some very real concern in there. Huey was worried abt him, about the potential this elevator might become a coffin very, very quickly. If the suspect  _ did _ have any more explosives, if she  _ did _ trigger them now. They’d be blown to pieces, and the last thing Elmer would see would be Huey’s face. So he may as well smile now.

He ruffled Huey’s stupidly fluffy hair and forced a grin. “It’ll be fiiiiiine. You said Monica was coming to rescue us. Moni-moni will save us and we’ll all go out and get takeout and it’ll be perfect.”

“How can you be so optimistic?” Huey asked, disbelieving.

Elmer shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to be able to smile genuinely. And I’ve never managed it yet so we have to make it out of here. That’s one reason, I guess.”

The look on Huey’s face was one of unreadable horror. He touched Elmer’s cheek, and Elmer smiled. Huey ran his thumb across Elmer’s lips, almost like that would tell him something, almost like that would help. 

“You don’t have to fake smile around me, Elmer.”

“But Hueeeeeeeey, I need the practise!” Elmer whined, and then burst out laughing. “Can’t stop won’t stop, sorry Huey. I don’t know if I  _ can _ smile genuinely at all, this is the best I can do. Practise makes perfect, even if it takes centuries.”

“We don’t have centuries,” Huey pointed out. “We need to get out of here.”

Elmer threw on another grin and that seemed to be Huey’s breaking point. He grabbed Elmer’s face and kissed him, hard. Kissing was an odd activity, Elmer thought, but he could feel Huey’s heart rate and sense a brief flicker of a smile as Huey’s lips touched his. 

And then the elevator whirred into life and the doors opened. Huey broke the kiss suddenly and looked up.

“Hey Moni-moni!” Elmer sang cheerfully, not looking behind him. He saw Huey redden beyond belief. “What?”

“It’s not Monica.”

At the entrance to the lift was Victor, arms folded and one eyebrow raised in amusement. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I? I can shut the doors and leave you here if that’s the case…”

“We were trying to get out,” Huey insisted, pushing Elmer off him unceremoniously and standing up. “Elmer overbalanced, we ended up in a heap. Nothing happened.”

“Sure,” Victor sounded unconvinced. “You’re lucky that girlfriend of yours came and told the real police where you were. We had a good laugh about it.”

“Have you got her, the suspect? She-”

“Is rotting in a fucking cell right now,” Victor finished. “Miss  _ Campanella _ presented us with enough evidence to get an arrest warrant rushed through. She’s a very efficient young woman. You’re lucky to have her on your side.”

He escorted them out of the building to where Monica was waiting for them, and she hugged them both desperately and kissed them in quick succession. They went back to the office and talked about changing the door sign, adding Elmer’s name to it. They decided against it, and instead added a logo.

An albatross. 

He’d wanted a smiley face but they’d said no. So an albatross it was.

They really were pro-detectives now. Fancy door and everything.

 

-

 

Looking back the way Victor said Campanella was like someone saying something he knew was an alias. At the time it hadn’t seemed important.

It did now.

Monica was the Mask Maker.

Who else was she too?

 

-

 

After breakfast he set off to the office. Like he did every day. They had to discuss Niki’s case and see what leads they could dig up, while she stayed safe under Esperanza’s guard. This was just another case, beyond Monica being the Mask Maker which really they could all move past easily enough.

Except today something was different. The streets were hectic, barricades blocking the two main roads for a massive protest scheduled that day. 

Something was off.

Something was wrong.

Thank goodness he’d borrowed that gun from Esperanza now.  
  
  
You never knew when it might come in handy.

Elmer put on his own mask, and  _smiled_. 

After all, everyone wore masks, when it came down to it, didn't they?

And Elmer's was shaped like a smile.

**Author's Note:**

> there's going to be another part of not-1705, from Niki's pov. Hopefully that will complete not-1705, w less time-skips and tbh less shippiness (aka the whole reason this au exists to begin w oh no less of it??? Well whoops I made a plot happen its gonna have to happen at some point)
> 
> I'm trying to get stuff moving along but I keep getting snippety ideas to add so it ends up like this every time.
> 
> But I rly hope you enjoyed it and I'm sorry it took so long


End file.
